Okay, so the Garmin 310XT is supposed to be a multisport GPS watch, but let’s be perfectly honest here – it sucks in the water!
Not only does is refuse to measure a swimmer’s heart rate like the Polar range manage to do, it can also give a very distorted distance measurement and track when it is under the water half the time. It’s not a big deal, I guess, but if you’re a nerd like me and love being able to go “I swam from there to there and then around there and in the end covered x metres” then there are different things you can do to get the most out of your 310 whilst swimming.
1. Normal Setting – just setting the watch on ‘OTHER’ and going for a swim gives a very wonky track reading, and a very out-of-whack distance. Hitting the water at Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast and swimming around the buoys which make up a roughly 1km circuit has the Garmin saying that the distance was 1.8km.
2. Swim Setting – in the Settings options when in the Other mode, you can choose to have Swim OFF or Swim ON. Putting the Swim setting to ON still gives a very wonky track to look at in Garmin Connect or Google Earth, but at least it tells you that you swam roughly the right distance – in this case 1.07km.
3. Put It Under Your Cap – The best way to show a true track and give the most accurate distance is to leave the Swim setting to OFF, but rather than wearing the Garmin on one’s wrist is to wear it on one’s head. Placing the Garmin in a swim cap and then pulling it over the head means that you need to remember which button is where and then operate it by touch to start it off and stop it (much less do lap times and the like). Doing the swim this way gives a very straight-line track, and indicates that the swim was 1.03km – pretty much what measuring it in Google Earth says it is.
Admittedly, wearing it under the cap can be a bit of a pain in the butt, and not recommended if you think for one second that it may fall off and sink to the bottom of whatever body of water you’re swimming in, but if it’s not too deep and not in the swim leg of a full-contact triathlon, then this is the best option.
